Politicians React to Ann Coulter Gay Slur and CPAC Events

Max Blumenthal from The Nation produced a short "unauthorized documentary" of his trip to the Conservative Political Action Conference (above). It features appearances by Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Grover Norquist, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, and others and is well worth the 7+ minutes of your time.

Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research which co-sponsored the CPAC conference said: "Ann Coulter not only once again went out of her way to use a nasty epithet, she pushed her offensiveness up a notch. We conservatives have enough trouble overcoming the false things that are said about us without paying for a platform upon which we shoot ourselves annually in the foot."

John Edwards issued this statement: "The kind of hateful language she used has no place in political debate or our society at large. I believe it is our moral responsibility to speak out against that kind of bigotry and prejudice every time we encounter it.

And Ann Coulter responded to the outrage on her website: "I'm so ashamed, I can't stop laughing." Coulter also commented to the New York Times about the Republican response to her comments, saying "C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."

Howard Dean was quick out of the gate to condemn Coulter's comments on Friday: "There is no place in political discourse for this kind of hate-filled and bigoted comments. While Democrats and Republicans may disagree on the issues, we should all be able to agree that this kind of vile rhetoric is out of bounds. The American people want a serious, thoughtful debate of the issues. Republicans -- including the Republican presidential candidates who shared the podium with Ann Coulter today -- should denounce her hateful remarks."

Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy issued a statement: "Ann Coulter's words of hate have no place in the public sphere much less our political discourse."

And it wasn't just political figures speaking out against the pundit. Recently out former NBA player John Amaechi said: "Yesterday, Ann Coulter, in a speech before the Conservative Political Action Committee, used the 'F' word that has long been used as a hateful and harmful slur against gay people. I have worked as a youth mentor since I was in college, and in the weeks since I publicly came out I have heard from young people from all over the globe. Coming out and living openly can be challenging - and that challenge only grows when people like Ann Coulter mockingly use it as a cheap joke. Words have power - and this word in particular has a ricochet effect, as it emboldens bullies in the school yard, in the work place, and on the streets, and tells them that this kind of hate speech is ok. Ann Coulter knows better, yet continues to disparage the GLBT community. The people in the room with her yesterday would do well to speak out loudly against her remarks and more importantly her sentiment and send a message that harmful slurs never have a place in the public discourse."

Mitt Romney's spokesman Kevin Madden said, "It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect. Political discourse ought to be more substantive and thoughtful."

John McCain called the comments "wildly inappropriate" through his spokesman Brian Jones.

And Rudy Giuliani echoed his fellow candidates: "The comments were completely inappropriate and there should be no place for such name-calling in political debate."

Republican candidates Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo and Vice President Dick Cheney, who also attended the CPAC conference where Coulter made her remarks, have not yet, to my knowledge, crafted public responses.

Comments

I agree the comment was in very bad taste, but really didn't harm anyone but Ann Coulter. There are posts in this blog that fantasize about the death of the President and VP that are much more offensive and dangerous. Get a life!

Posted by: jason | Mar 5, 2007 9:46:03 AM

Phew, thanks for putting us right, Jason. I was a little confused about the moral issues for a moment there.

Posted by: John C | Mar 5, 2007 10:01:56 AM

PS: Coulter is Fred Phelps in drag.

Posted by: John C | Mar 5, 2007 10:03:46 AM

We should hang Anne Coulter around the neck of the right-wing like an albatross. And they'd DESERVE it. The difference between left and right in the country isn't that the left doesn't have some hateful nuts. It's that the hateful nuts on the left are babbling on street corners where they belong. We don't PAY them, give them radio stations and turn them into our spokesmen and representatives. The right does. They GIVE COULTER MONEY and buy her books, and claim her as their REPRESENTATIVE. Her face is the face of the Republican Party and it's time America knows it.

Once again Ann Coulter has proved that she is the ugliest woman in America.

Posted by: ardi | Mar 5, 2007 10:05:28 AM

"There are posts in this blog that fantasize about the death of the President and VP that are much more offensive and dangerous."

I have this fantasy that conservative trolls receive an instant electrical shock when they come to post here at Towleroad, but it's just a fantasy.

No one here has advocated taking steps to actually kill the President and VP, so your tired argument really has no merit.

It's appalling how clueless so many conservatives are about the power of hate speech. They actually believe that calling Bush stupid or saying he and Chenney have committed war crimes is akin to someone being called Faggot or Nigger.

I shouldn't be terribly surprised. The conservative mindset is what contributed to hundreds of years of oppression that the words Faggot and Nigger came out of.

When you can convince me that a hostile culture against your Republican choice for President is the same kind of hate as the hatred for an entire group of people based on their skin color or sexual orientation, then maybe ... just maybe, I may take you seriously.

Until then you can all ride Ann Coulter's slow boat to China.

Posted by: mark m | Mar 5, 2007 10:10:53 AM

Shouldn't we just start ignoring her?

It is only news if this woman one day says something even remotely insightful.

***

I say gay bloggers should stop writing about Coulter. She's just trying to sell books. To ignore this shrill harpy would upset her more than any criticism would.

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

?

Further moral clarification will be most welcome.

Posted by: John C | Mar 5, 2007 10:38:13 AM

The name calling was wrong,
but it did make me wonder....Is he or isn't he?
Without going into the details of my perceptions, he and his wife seem to be a mismatch in terms of their appearence...just kind of makes you wonder.

Posted by: tom | Mar 5, 2007 10:39:20 AM

I have wondered whether Ann Coulter has been sober.

There is something called alcoholic behavior that is similar to behavior while intoxicated, and this is what I hear when she speaks.

Or is the paperback edition of her latest screed coming out soon and Ann needs to climb back in the headlines?

Either way, her conduct is as self-destructive as that Spears girl.

Posted by: Esther Blodgett | Mar 5, 2007 10:46:25 AM

Last time I checked, Ann Coulter wasn't a candidate for election anywhere, so how are her comments part of the "political debate?" Last time I checked, she was just a nutjob windbag that says whatever she wants to say and people pay her for it. Very similar to Rush Limbaugh, Jesse Jackson, or The Uhuru Movement. As far as I am concerned, these people only have as much power as we are willing to give them by going nuts over exactly these kind of comments.

Posted by: Garry | Mar 5, 2007 10:47:15 AM

Jason, your perspicacity is bodacious. Meantime, pity that Coulter didn't call Hillary a "dyke". Perhaps that'd have gotten Cheney's interest. Then again, recall that Cheney uses "fuck you" as a term of endearment.

Meantime, can i carry Max Blumenthal's child

Posted by: zabadak | Mar 5, 2007 10:49:05 AM

Your intentions are good, Cup O' Joe, but, for all their growing influence, bloggers—at least those who oppose Coulter, gay and nongay—have absolutely no impact on her popularity. Few of the MILLIONS who buy her books probably even know there are gay blogs. If they read blogs at all, they are the ones that wash back into their "brains" what they already believe.

Coulter's following is entirely the product of her appearances on talk radio, in newspapers, and, most of all, cable television, including the Advocate's "Man of the Year," Bill Maher—who ferociously defends her, calls her a great friend, and periodically gives her a platform for her hate.

We can do little about the neo-Nazis on talk radio, but I believe that it is but another symptom of the incompetence and impotence of GLAAD and HRC that they have failed to convince MSNBC and CNN to continue to give a platform, through such shows as Chris Matthews' "Hardball," to her hatemongering. It was less than a year ago that she called Al Gore a fag and all they did was issue another official Pussygram.

The mainstream media at large only began to minimize their wholesale bashing of gays when the precursors of GLAAD picketed and "zapped" and made their lives miserable enough that they changed to avoid further disruption of their previously comfortable lives. For example, the veteran activist, Mark Segal, who announced Barbara Gittings death several days ago, once chained himself to the "CBS Evening News" desk of Walter Cronkite. Given heightened security measures long-since in place, things like that would be less possible, but the sidewalks in front of the buildings from which Matthews, et al., broadcast are still there; many more than have previously tried could demonstrate against Coulter whereever she goes [and she makes a ton off of her appearances on college campuses and elsewhere]. But WHAT are GLAAD and HRC doing? Nothing more than e-mailing their limp dick righteous indignation. The only thing more worthless than that would be our imagining that WE accomplish anything by "ignoring" her.

Posted by: Leland | Mar 5, 2007 10:53:26 AM

Oh Tom, aren't we beyond all that? "he and his wife seem to be a mismatch, in terms of their appearence" I'm not quite sure which one of them is out of place...should he have married a blonde, or someone taller...or is this your veiled way of calling his wife fat?

If she had used "nigger", "jew", "wop", etc she would have been drawn and quartered. Wonder what the press would say if she's charaterized as a selfish, self centered cunt? The press would have to go to rehab?

Posted by: JimmyD | Mar 5, 2007 10:55:26 AM

For the record, she already suggested that Hillary was a dyke last year sometime.

And, while I was writing the above, even more posted their fantasies that Coulter will go away if WE simply hold our breath until she dies. WHERE is your sense of reality, Gentlemen? The logical extension of what you're suggesting is that if we just ignore them Osama Bin Laden's followers will go away. If we had just ignored those planes heading for the World Trade Center they would never have crashed into them. If Matthew Shepard had just ignored the guy crushing his skull with the butt of a gun, he'd still be alive. If we Bob Hattoy had just ignored his AIDS it wouldn't have killed him. What you're ignoring is reality and, for your own good, as well as our community's, I respectfully suggest it's far past time you stopped.

Posted by: Leland | Mar 5, 2007 11:02:24 AM

--Mitt Romney's spokesman Kevin Madden said, "It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect. Political discourse ought to be more substantive and thoughtful."--

Oh please. Like there's no link between the kind of person who uses "faggot" as a slur and antigay positions on marriage and adoption.

Hear the audience cheer when Coulture said that. These are educated politically savvy (and white!) conservatives whose views on gay issues are just dressed up versions of antigay slurs.

It's really fresh for pols like Romney to be able to say, out of one side of his mouth, that gays are a danger to straight marriage and that they are not fit to adopt children and then, out of another, say, but gee, we need to treat them with "dignity and respect."

How confusing for their followers. If I think gays are sick perverts who are not fit to adopt children, and I hear this from church leaders and politicians, I don't get why I can't call them names, such as faggot. And laugh when Ann Coulture does the same. Either they are bad people (who are worthy of being slurred) or they're not.

Posted by: SGR | Mar 5, 2007 11:03:49 AM

It really is amazing to me how John C, thinks that the left aren't hateful.
Here is some news for you. Liberalism is a disease. While I don't apologize for your condition, I can understand how it happens.
President Blow-job Clinton lies under oath and all the disease stricken dems & libs think this is ok. Then his comes out and lies even worse by saying she didn't know. Yeah... I believe you. This is a woman as Senator of NY, didn't attend one funeral for the 911 victims. Michelle Malkin has it wrong. We need to put liberals in holding camps.

Posted by: DB | Mar 5, 2007 11:06:06 AM

Update, it wasn't John C who wrote "We should hang Anne Coulter around the neck of the right-wing like an albatross" It was some whack job with the name Iggy. What kind of a name is Iggy.

"Her "faggot" joke was not just a distraction from all the good that was highlighted and represented at the conference. It was the equivalent of a rhetorical fragging--an intentionally-tossed verbal grenade that exploded in her own fellow ideological soldiers' tent."

Posted by: John C | Mar 5, 2007 11:15:59 AM

Joseph,
While trying to keep this blog civil.
The narrow minded notion that fighting for our rights is futile and that regardless of out come society will never except us.
Is in its self an ignorant statement.

If your gay.I suggest some good therapy to get over your self loathing and internalized homophobia.
If your not gay than may I suggest you drag your red neck ass back under a rock.

As a Canadian,and this could be said for the rest of the western countries that have had MAJOR leaps forward in their social exceptants of the LGBT communities,that your contension is FLAT OUT BULL S**T.

The US maybe lagging a little behind.
But those countries that have jumped forward are perfect examples of what can be acheived with education and perceverance.

Perhaps educating your ignorant, pervertated, 14th century mind would be a good start.

Posted by: griffin1573 | Mar 5, 2007 11:33:25 AM

Hey Andy, I got to this story because Google News had your link posted on it's News homepage. Congrats!

Also, there are very good, very valid reasons that sorry excuse of a human will die all alone, single, with no friends or loved ones around.

Posted by: BabbuLu | Mar 5, 2007 11:35:58 AM

The Republican candidates all decry her remarks. Seems like a whole lot of backpedaling.

If Ann Coulter did not have the forum, she could not garner the attention.

Let's see if Ms. Coulter is disinvited from or not invited to future events like this. My guess is she's staying on the speaker list.

Just maybe the Republican party wants to have a focus on gay issues in the election debate. Talking about Iraq doesn't help them, but appealing to deepseated bigotry and getting out the church vote does.

I'm hoping that John Edwards can go all the way, because I believe he's the best viable candidate for President out there. Please consider giving him your support.

Posted by: John | Mar 5, 2007 11:50:56 AM

I do hope this does somehow reflect badly on Romney and other conservatives in the future, even minutely. Coulter's behaviour is nothing new and, to me, the fact that Romney went out of his way to promote her onstage shows his lack of knowledge to the fact that alot of conservatives see her as an extremist. Im betting in the back of their minds they agree with her ignorant hateful ideas but dont like the fact that she is soo obvious and outspoken about them.
I hope this bitch pulls a Mel Gibson soo badly!